I have been in the military for almost 15 years now. During initial entry training, a large portion of a military member’s time consists of physical fitness training. Once I got to my regular active-duty unit, we had organized physical fitness training four days per week. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday were physical training first thing in the morning. Thursdays we had “Sergeant’s Time,” where we worked on wartime skills, many of them physical tasks.
I spent four years on active-duty in the Army and decided a needed a change when my enlistment ended. I then joined the Air National Guard, and this fall will mark my 11th anniversary of ANG service. We are still required to uphold the same physical fitness standards that the active-duty Air Force does, but we don’t have organized unit fitness training like they do. That requires us to workout on our own time. Over the years, I have devised my own personal fitness training plan, and my scores on my twice-yearly fitness tests never drop below 95%.
I begin by running three days per week, usually two to three miles. I usually make my schedule on Sunday evening – I change things up and never do the same schedule from week to week. Sometimes, if I don’t feel my best, I’ll get on my elliptical for an hour instead of running. On my running days, I do minimal strength-training – a few sit-ups and a few push-ups are about all I do.
One day a week, I lift weights. I don’t want to bulk up too much, so I lift for about 30 minutes. Sometimes I stretch it out, though and take lots of breaks – we have a small workout area in our home with weights, a stationary bicycle and elliptical and I watch reruns of “Dallas” on DVD, so I don’t want to finish until the episode is over.
The other two days, I pick a fun activity with my family. My husband, son and I are avid bicyclists. We have some amazing Trek bicycles, and we ride for miles on the local bike trail. You can also find us playing sports such as soccer, kickball or Frisbee golf.
The humans in the house aren’t the only family members with a workout schedule. I have two very young, very active Siberian Husky / German Shepherd mixes and they need to get out and about, too. When we lived in another state, the dogs went to daycare three to five times per week and went wild with their friends. Now that we are in a small town, their fitness is up to us. We walk two miles every morning, and one to two miles each afternoon. My older dog just turned three and has a tendency to gain weight if we don’t keep her moving, so we never skip a walk.
My seventh day is my day of rest. You hear a lot of differing opinions from different trainers. Some say take every other day off. In my experience, one day per week of laziness is enough to re-energize me, and not throw me off the exercise wagon completely.
